Industry donates expertise and gear for Ekka
- Details
The Fullscreen Fireworks Show, presented by 7NEWS Brisbane, was specially designed for television audiences to stay home and watch on TV for the best vantage point.
Over 50 fireworks, lighting, sound and vision crew worked on the event - another example of our industry donating their time, expertise and gear to a worthy cause even though they have been hardest hit by COVID-19.
NW Group’s involvement in the event came about whilst Ray Moss, general manager for NW Group in Queensland, was having a catch up with Tony Laffan who heads up the entertainment department at Ekka.
“Tony mentioned Max Brunner from Skylighter Fireworks had offered to donate a pyro show on the eve of what would have been Ekka 2020 given the event had to cancel due to COVID restrictions, and in passing that 7 News Brisbane were in negotiation to take the show live to air,” explained Ray. “Ekka has been a loyal NW client for around 16 years so the decision was really a no brainer for us to be involved.”
Skylighter, like the rest of the entertainment industry, is in full shutdown due to COVID gathering restriction (and lost the back end of trading in 2019 through mass cancellations during the devastating bushfires), and Max saw this as an opportunity to give back to the community and, as importantly, bring his team together to work on the project. Both sentiments resonated greatly with Ray and the need to give our people some respite from the endless cancellations and floor-sweeping.
“Mental health and well-being within our industry are so important and something as simple as having a gig to do in times like this cannot be underestimated,” added Ray. “Once I drilled into how they were looking to incorporate and deliver the technical backbone, we soon realised they needed some assistance and happily offered our services.”
Within 24 hours NW Group came to the realisation that what started as a single firework display in the middle of the arena had grown considerably. With that, given the profile it was fast attracting, it needed to be done properly so they not only volunteered to provide audio playback, mastering and time-code distribution but also began planning to add a lighting element.
Josh Finlayson, Luke Symons and Cam Walker made up the audio team with NW Group providing multi-track playback from a dual redundant QLab system keying via midi from a Yamaha QL1 console.
NW distributed time code; SMPTE to lighting and FSK to pyro, as well as the audio track to Ch 7 who did a full OB of the 6pm news bulletin from the site. For those that don’t know much about modern television production, it’s not often they come out of the studio these days so the guys knew this was building to be something special.
NW also provided vision monitors and distribution to the operators, taking program splits from the Ch7 OB truck, and provided show comms across operations fully interfaced back to the Ch7 studio and producer, along with two-way radios to keep the onsite team connected.
“Given the obvious benefits to the well-being of having as many people involved as possible, I called Tim Allder at Chameleon Touring Brisbane and Jason Raft from JLX Productions to see if they would like to be involved and both immediately said yes,” said Ray. “Their contribution and response was amazing, having all worked together on so many great projects in the past everyone jumped back into work mode from our COVID slumber. It was awesome to see our talented teams in full flight - which feels like forever since they had the opportunity.”
The one thing that wasn’t made a big deal of in the media, is that all production and pyrotechnic elements were fully 100% donated despite some of the keyboard warrior calls questioning the cost and ‘waste of money’. This was done by all involved to create some happiness and improve mental health within the industry and community at large, an objective that was more than achieved.
“It always amazes me that people and businesses whose livelihoods have been so devastated by the impacts of the current pandemic can continue to dig deeper and give back,” remarked Ray. “It makes me proud to be part of this great industry of ours.”
Chameleon prepared the lighting to minimise time onsite with the four rolling trusses fully pre-rigged with fixtures and distro to be completely plug and play - although the heart took a bit longer.
Lighting gear was eight Claypaky Stormy CC, 20 x Sharpy Beam, 12 x Sharpy Wash, 14 x Pixelline 4, 12 x Martin MAC Quantum Wash, 12 x Claypaky Scenius Profile, 24 x ShowPRO IP Hex PARs, 40 x Martin MAC 101 and 14 x ShowPRO LED Duets. Control was MA Lighting grandMA2.
“Echoing Ray’s comments below, our motivation was about not only providing a brief reprieve to Queensland but also bringing our staff together again,” added Max Brunner from Skylighter Fireworks. “Sixteen pyrotechnicians worked on the display in the lead-up and on the day. The feedback about the positive effects on their mental health was great and has had a lasting effect. For us, that was just one of the major factors in donating this show. It was also a way for Ekka to stay at the forefront of people’s minds.”
(Jim Evans)
